


Wonder

by tigs



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-03
Updated: 2006-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-12 07:06:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2100159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigs/pseuds/tigs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Rodney wonders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wonder

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this is part of a 'verse that I've been playing with in my head since... last March, I think? But given the extreme unlikelihood that I'll ever actually get the whole big story written, I think it's safe to just call this a post- _Return I_ AU. (Not that I've read any spoilers for _Return II_ , but in the end I can't imagine it won't be.)

It is Jinto who drags his drum to the fires first, sitting down on a moss covered stone and letting his fingers caress the hide. Rodney hears a murmur rise up around him and then others are joining in: one with something that looks like a metal plate, another with a tube of some sort—a primitive looking recorder.

An older woman, one who's name Rodney has not yet learned, claps her hands. Then she sort of—the only word Rodney can think of is *yodels*--and the next thing Rodney knows, the music has started. Drum and percussion and wind, feet and hands and voices all joining together into a tune that seems to be unfamiliar only to him.

Beside him, Teyla is smiling, lips parted to show slivers of white teeth bright in the fire-lit darkness, and her feet, Rodney sees, are already twitching. Another beat, two, and Cordon is standing in front of her, extending his hand. She does glance at Rodney—not quite asking for permission—before she takes it, joins this young man, her people, circling the flames.

It is a reel of sorts, the beat familiar enough that when he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine that he's back on Earth, back in his childhood, taking that god-forsaken dance class his grandmother signed him up for during fifth grade. But that was done in a ballroom, his hand sweaty against the starched cloth at Alice Miller's back, and this is—

Here he smells smoke, hears the rustling of leaves, feels a breeze touch at his cheeks.

Soon the song is done, the tube-recorder the last to fade, and when Rodney opens his eyes, he sees Teyla standing in front of him, holding out her hand, a questioning look on her face. It's an invitation, he knows; she smiles at him encouragingly.

Still, though, he starts to say no. He says, "Thank you, but—" Not now, not here, he wants to say. Not while he can still hear Alice Miller counting the beat under her breath, not while he can still almost smell the floor polish. Not yet. But Teyla is still watching him, her gaze becoming knowing (saddened) and he closes his eyes again, just for an instant.

That, after all, is no longer his world. This is.

This is.

"Okay," he says, nodding, and stands, stumbling a little as he gets to his feet. He takes Teyla's hand and follows her towards the flames, towards the circle of people. Still, his natural inclination is to turn, to leave before he can embarrass himself, but then Teyla is putting a hand on his shoulder. Smiling up at him. Squeezing his hand.

"Just move to the music," she says as the musicians start playing again—now three drums, two metal plates, and four recorder-tubes strong. "There are no steps. Just listen to the beat, feel it in your blood."

Rodney tries.

He trips, yes, he steps on her toes, yes, but instead of letting him blush and retreat from the dance, she just smiles and steps on his toes in return, what feels like twice as hard. The first time she does it, he narrows his eyes. The second time he says, "Okay, *ow*," but by the end of the dance he is laughing with her, almost battling her, trying to step on her toes before she can tread on his own.

When the notes fade from the air, though, so does his laughter, the warmth that he was feeling only moments before, and when another man approaches them, clearly intending to ask Teyla for the next turn around the campfire, Rodney takes a step back.

"I'm just going to—" He points in the direction of where he'd been sitting earlier and presses a hand to his chest. He doesn't need to fake his panted breaths or the sweat on his forehead.

Teyla is giving him yet another knowing look, like she can hear all of the words that he isn't saying, but she nods, takes the man's hand, and turns back to her people. Rodney watches her for a moment, then turns, walking back towards his log, then farther still, until he is at his tent. He doesn't go inside, though. No, instead he sits down on a conveniently placed stump and looks back towards the fire.

The music is still audible, as are the sounds of laughter, of voices, and for a long moment he watches shadowed figures move in time with the beat. Slowly, though, his head tips back until he's staring up at the sky. At the stars. At the impossibly vast black emptiness that surrounds them, stretching out over millions of light years.

Millions and millions and—

Some time later Teyla approaches him, but he doesn't move until she sits down beside him. Then he glances at her out of the corner of his eye and sees that she, too, is staring upwards. He feels like he should say something, perhaps make a joke, or apologize for leaving the festivities, but she is the one who speaks first.

"I understand," she says. Then pauses. "You are… regretting." It's not quite a statement, yet not a question either.

And he starts to shake his head, then nod, then shake it again, because while yes, he is regretting—he will always regret—he knows that he made the right decision. He has to believe that.

"I hated it there," he says after a moment. "At Area 51? I woke up every morning thinking I was hearing ocean waves only to discover that my neighbors were watering their lawn yet again. I actually started craving the imitation chicken sometime around the third week back. Do you know how *wrong* that felt?" He pauses, swallows. "I missed… people, too." Who he missed does not need to be spoken. "And I—"

There are things he regrets, yes. Pizza, his cat who had just started to forgive him for his last leave of absence, the future he'd so carefully mapped out for himself from the day he'd first learned of the Stargate, but the choice to be here, now, is not one of them.

When choosing between the Pegasus Galaxy and Earth, after all, he'd found there was no choice at all.

"I knew when we left that there was a good chance I'd never return to Earth," he says, "and—and I was okay with that. I am. This was… I needed to be here. But I— Sometimes I just can't help but—"

"Wonder," Teyla says softly.

He nods and turns his attention back to the night sky, to the stars, and for a moment his thoughts flare as they've flared for days now—what if, what now, why, oh God, oh God—but then Teyla's hand is on his arm, light but firm, sliding down over his wrist, his palm, until her fingers are twined with his own.

The squeeze is gentle, but it breaks the cycle of his thoughts, draws his attention back down to the settlement, the dance that is still happening, to her. He squeezes back, more desperately than he wants to, but unable to stop himself.

"Yes," he says finally, swallowing. "Yes, sometimes I wonder."


End file.
